Azula yawned as she rolled her neck and glanced at the clock.
"Ugh, three a.m." she muttered, it had been an hour since the bar closed and she and the other two guys working tonight had finally gotten the place cleaned up.
"Tips are on the counter Azula!" Zan called from across the empty room.
"Ok, I'll grab them on my way out!" Azula called back as she continued on her way to the office. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes she opened the door peered inside the dark room.
The room was overrun with clutter, and in the dark it was nearly impossible to avoid tripping over something. Thankfully an outside streetlight shining through the window gave off just enough light to see and give anyone in the office a chance at walking without his or her foot coming down on a discarded tack. Azula smiled softly from her position in the doorway, the office was really a tiny closet. It was roughly ten feet long and not even four feet wide. But somehow the bar manager had managed to cram a safe, two desks, a coat rack and a futon into the room. The streetlight gave off just enough light for Azula to see Mika, her sweet little girl, sound asleep on the futon.
Azula had to give Mika credit for being as good as she is, lord knows most four-year-olds are little brats, lord knows she was. But Mika isn't. She doesn't usually complain about having to go to work with mommy, even though she knows she'll normally end up sleeping there. She never complains about taking a bath at home, only to put her dirty clothes back on and pack her pajamas in a bag before going to the bar. Sometimes she'll pester Azula about being tired or board or hungry, but all in all the kid has more patients than her mother.
Deciding that she had stayed in the doorway long enough Azula carefully made her way through her boss's unorganized mess of an office until she reached the futon. Being careful not to wake her, Azula gathered her sleeping daughter into her arms.
"Mhm" Mika groaned upon being disturbed "my pictures" she muttered.
"Your pictures are in your bag" Azula said softly, remembering watching Mika put the scribbles she was coloring all night into her bag when she came in on her break to tuck her in.
"I forgot one" Mika mumbled
"We'll get it tomorrow" Azula said
"But I made it for you" Mika pressed
Azula fought back a groan; we'll get tomorrow, she mentally repeated before taking a deep breath to calm herself. "Where is it?" She asked, her voice as calm and even as she could manage.
"The desk" Mika replied as she stifled a yawn.
Rolling her eyes, mostly out of sleep deprived irritability than anything else; Azula turned around and scanned the dark desk for anything that resembled the artwork of her daughter. Finally she found what she was looking for and shifted Mika into one arm so she could grab it. She then carefully bent down for Mika's bag before walking back into the bar, locking the office behind her, gathering her tips, and leaving.
By the time Azula and Mika made it back to their apartment it was four in the morning. Azula fumbled in her pocket for her keys and nearly cursed when that action forced her to drop Mika's bag and papers. Ignoring this she finally got hold of the key and opened the door into the apartment. It was a small apartment, just a small living room, a smaller kitchenette, and a bedroom with a small bathroom built into it. Not to mention that the electricity and plumbing were both nearly shot, but Azula wouldn't complain. It beat the streets and most of the homeless shelters. It beat every place she had ever lived throughout her life, well except for one.
Don't even think about it she warned herself. The memories of that place, sweet as they may be, brought only pain in the end.
By now she had made it into the bedroom so with her free arm she pulled away the covers before gently laying Mika down and tucking her in.
"Goodnight baby" she whispered after pressing a gentle kiss to her daughter's forehead.
Mika stirred a tiny bit but not enough to make Azula think she might wake. So with her daughter all put to bed Azula went back to the front door of the apartment and grabbed what she had dropped before shutting the door and dropping the retrieved bag in a corner and glancing at the drawings before placing them on the coffee table.
Normally Azula would sleep in the bed with Mika, she didn't care that you weren't supposed to sleep in the same bed as your child, the couch was just too uncomfortable for either of them. She got it at a yard sale practically destroyed, she tried to fix it but she could only do so much and it was still basically a pile of scrap wood with two thin cushions thrown on top. But tonight she lay on it because she knew she wouldn't be sleeping anyway, she had too much on her mind. She had been found. The water tribe boy, Sokka she was pretty sure his name was, had found her. He knew it was her to; he kept staring like he had seen a ghost and she didn't think even he bought her lie.
"Well that's what I get for picking a name as common as Yori," she muttered, pulling her hair out of its tie.
She ran her fingers through her thick hair and contemplated the idea of a haircut, then for the thousandth time decided against it. She'd give herself a haircut the next time she gave Mika one.
Forcing herself off the couch Azula went and changed into her pajamas then climbed into the bed with one last tired groan and began to drift off into sleep, one last question filling her mind as the memories of her childhood resurfaced, How did I end up here?